Something new in the head lately, I have been given a few seconds of clarity before my last couple of decisions/situations. However the choices made seem no more correct. Like I mentioned before the instant kharmic returns that seem to go with this place after your actions? Whatever, there is definitely something weird and spiritual in the air.
In my days in Mumbai, I have gotten better at making my way around, and as a result I am out at night or whenever walking the streets till 1am or 2am. I drink a lot fo fresh juices at the same shop, and I usually watch them close-up. So one night after the 25 minute walk to the Caucasian Dorm I am in now, I notice some fuck has chucked all my stuff on the floor and has stolen my bunk. I complain but nothing is done, I get a new bunk with rubbish piled on it. I am starting to notice lice and fleas on me and my shit. Some jack-ass is showering from 130am to 230am. I can't take it! So I jet. I just can't get myself to toss this guy out of my bunk for some reason. He looks weak and older, and he may know kung-Fu? So I leave the dorm and head back to the other side of town to an Indian dorm that I stayed in a few days ago. They have one bed left, sweet AC deluxe bunk.
I get back the next day to the caucasian dorm, my lice is really eating me alive at this point, and the dude and his friend are hanging out wondering how to get to the victoria train station. I can tell they are quite cost-effective chaps, so this new HINDI like thing in my head says why not do the opposite, nothing is intentional, love not hate, etc. etc... So I offer to walk them over to the station, and eventually decide to go back to Goa with them. Terree' 48, (Bed-Stealer, Wounded Bird, with his only friend in the world, possibly only out of sympathy, Eric. Eric, 44 ( Rolling Stone, Shady Merchant Importer/Exporter, World Traveller, later to be known as 'Legend') A Serious character, and both seriously French.
Shit has gone well, the sun and salt have healed my bites, and the local trashmen have burned all my clothes that were once in my pack, I have nothing, but a bathingsuit and flip flops, and tenners. And I am no longer the whitest guy on the beach. Made some possibly excellent business connections for Modern50.com from S.A. and France.
Instant Khamric Returns (Re-capped)
-someone steals my sheets off my bed aand I rudly take them back at 2am, and I notice I have contracted lice and fleas.
-someone steals my bed, I do nothing and help them and end up having an incredible time, making friends and busines contacts.
-kickass full moon party and I take my time telling this african uk girl I am not interested, get a call my Priyanka mid chat with Hallo(the african uk girl), and while on phone with her I get attacked by 6 wild dogs. No bite but loose flip flops.
Coincidences? Instant Kharma? So I totally have a mind and heart altering conversation with Priyanka after I shed the dogs and the flip flops and call her back. The girl is a Temptress Nymph Muse the power!!! So I am flying back to Mumbai, Monday Afternoon. It's been raining in GOA on and off for three days, but generally nice during the day so swimming and all is still rather good, but you can tell the season is coming to a close. Maybe tears from my love.
So you are up to date, got no poems for you and I am jut trying to be concise! hope it is readable. In general, I am as lost as ever, not sure why I am stuck on this girl, or want to live in Mumbai, and other times I know everything. I guess this is normal. Is this silly dream just vanity? A search for Inter-Racial offspring? (jeff seling would say) Am I running away or into what is coming to me? (no country for old men) Swiss Cheese ( the swiss nyer i met a week ago) would says, the problem with Fantasy is that you always wake up. So, all I can think of is; I hope when my friends and loved ones think of Dino they think I have a good heart, no matter what happens. Lloyd, you pop the top and leave me out there and the situations are always sticky. ( in the complex sort of way.)
Dino
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Shangri-La on so many levels
Ahh Sunday Afternoon. I trekked up the cities' Western Railway north to the Sanjay Ghandi Nation Forest and Big Cat Safari Area in Borivali Mumbai. For the Lion and Tiger Safari. A jungle in the City? No way! And its a big area on the map its huge. People even live in it, not quite indigenous but it's Mumbai, they have space issues!On the map it states, "Fairly Dense Jungle."
The transport costs to this area 35km from my abode ran a whopping $2.07. And that was about what is was worth.
I arrived and we all hoped into bus no.2, it was gift wrapped in chicken wire, and after a fairly technical 'Reverse Rolling Jump/Bump Start' we were off with a head bobble right through a doubled gated and guarded entrance. To my dismay(should've know) we roll upto a large caged area with a resting white tiger, then next to that was another caged area with a restless orange tiger(bengal?) Sweet Baby Jesus! Through another double gate and we were in a free roaming area, where we rolled up on two sleeping lions (about 8m away.) The attendant open the side doors to the bus for some of us to take photos free of the chicken wire foreground. Then he steps to the ground and chucks a few small rocks at the big cats, it rouses them for the pose and all the Indians moan with glee. The attendant returns and sees my big camera and starts poking me in the leg, motioning me to take a picture, and I just smile, REAL BIG. Because I am dying inside laughing, thinking to myself these are my people! Is that bad? I am a scumbag!
Seriously though; need to get rid of that old bag of Mickey D's trash in the car? No problem whoosh right out the window. Too much to drink, just stop and piss, ANYWHERE! Your food ain't sitting well? Or got the runs? Fuckin ditto! And my girlfriend is 20 and the most gorgeous thing I have ever set eyes on! I am investing heavily in India.
"Dart? There's no Dart in my neck! You're Crazy Man. I like you but you're crazy man. "*
Well the 21 st Century was knocking and it is now dragging the Indian community along with it ready or not! It's exciting, but so many moving parts! See you in Hell, Dino.
*Will Ferrell line from the movie Old Skool
Friday, March 14, 2008
Taking my New Bride to the States
Ahhh the dreams of the young middle class and upper class Indian girls to marry a westerner and move to the US and live the good life? Heard this one from Priyanka after the Transformers IMAX showing, over a heated Air Hockey game. I was surprized, but it's logical I guess.
Ahhh the gentle "PUSH PULL PUSH PULL..."* of my little darling's dark sea of desire for me. It lapping at my ears through the cell or spilling on my lips during a film. So this dream exists?! I heard it from the horse's mouth. But I find it hard accept, the strong family ties and reruns of Full House will keep them all in India. But, I will take all the help I can get on this one. I hope I am not sterile, this chick wants kids!??!
I find myself next to older senior Indians during the day, which makes me think I am doing what the retired of India do all day. Hang out at street cafe's, read the paper, sudoko, crosswords, or sit around in public places staring, or surf the internet. I am on the right track. If only I could get Priyanka to stop talking about my future jobs in Mumbai.
In general, I am improving, I am down to one cigarette a day, and hopefully a half today, barring any sort of total breakdown. It's always eminent! I am also learning about India reading the paper everyday, and this place is tougher and much more violent than I thought. They have their share of murders, rapes, sodomy, extortion, fraud, clear cutting, etc. daily. I am hoping to steer clear of the evil elements of India.
I am living off the street food, and in the paper today there is a typhoid fever alert going, epidemic? Great. Stay away from 'CUT FRUIT,' Contaminated water, etc. Shit I have about 8 fruit juice shakes a day, ahh Fig, Banana, Grape, Strawberry, Pineapple. Amazing and all between 10-20 Rs. (.25 - .50) I think I got a shot for Typhoid? How long are they good for?
Reading about a lot of young enterpenuers in India making some good money, sounding more and more like moeny is in the air here like the USA. Makes it all sound possible. And learning more about what is to come in June, the MONSOON. Eating Ice Cream in the rain, stuff like that, coming out of Priyanka's incredibly wet little mouth makes it all sounds so good! She of course does not ride the public trains, which must get real nasty in the rain, while you are simaltaneously touching 6 to 8 other men in the 'everyone else class' train cars. Come to India and ride the trains in the rush hours if you are lonely! It's like twister but as far away as your imagination can take you from your high school cheerleading squad! Or some gestault therapy for the agraphobic! Bye, Dino...
Quotes:
24 Hour Full Power
Pure Indian
Aren't you tired? (after the second nut)
True Democracy
It's just a piece of tissue (the big V)
The Push Pull Wooing Technique *( Thnx Yasha(the nice slice of swiss cheese in the big apple))
Ahhh the gentle "PUSH PULL PUSH PULL..."* of my little darling's dark sea of desire for me. It lapping at my ears through the cell or spilling on my lips during a film. So this dream exists?! I heard it from the horse's mouth. But I find it hard accept, the strong family ties and reruns of Full House will keep them all in India. But, I will take all the help I can get on this one. I hope I am not sterile, this chick wants kids!??!
I find myself next to older senior Indians during the day, which makes me think I am doing what the retired of India do all day. Hang out at street cafe's, read the paper, sudoko, crosswords, or sit around in public places staring, or surf the internet. I am on the right track. If only I could get Priyanka to stop talking about my future jobs in Mumbai.
In general, I am improving, I am down to one cigarette a day, and hopefully a half today, barring any sort of total breakdown. It's always eminent! I am also learning about India reading the paper everyday, and this place is tougher and much more violent than I thought. They have their share of murders, rapes, sodomy, extortion, fraud, clear cutting, etc. daily. I am hoping to steer clear of the evil elements of India.
I am living off the street food, and in the paper today there is a typhoid fever alert going, epidemic? Great. Stay away from 'CUT FRUIT,' Contaminated water, etc. Shit I have about 8 fruit juice shakes a day, ahh Fig, Banana, Grape, Strawberry, Pineapple. Amazing and all between 10-20 Rs. (.25 - .50) I think I got a shot for Typhoid? How long are they good for?
Reading about a lot of young enterpenuers in India making some good money, sounding more and more like moeny is in the air here like the USA. Makes it all sound possible. And learning more about what is to come in June, the MONSOON. Eating Ice Cream in the rain, stuff like that, coming out of Priyanka's incredibly wet little mouth makes it all sounds so good! She of course does not ride the public trains, which must get real nasty in the rain, while you are simaltaneously touching 6 to 8 other men in the 'everyone else class' train cars. Come to India and ride the trains in the rush hours if you are lonely! It's like twister but as far away as your imagination can take you from your high school cheerleading squad! Or some gestault therapy for the agraphobic! Bye, Dino...
Quotes:
24 Hour Full Power
Pure Indian
Aren't you tired? (after the second nut)
True Democracy
It's just a piece of tissue (the big V)
The Push Pull Wooing Technique *( Thnx Yasha(the nice slice of swiss cheese in the big apple))
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Getting married and Leaving the States
A bunch of white people met at 8am under the regal metro cinema, near Churchgate rail station. All ready to be extras in a Bollywood production. After about a 30 minute a fishy looking Indian dude started taking our names down, then eventually checking them against a list of names they had collected the day before from meeting us here and there on the streets.
We boarded a bus and went north east into sprawling mumbai. It felt like a mass abduction, I really did not feel like this was a legitamate venture. And as we entered a petroleum refinery complex in a dodgy part of town, I was sure we were all being gutted for our organs and left for dead. But inside a the large warehouse, there was a little bustling movie studio; Catering, Wadrobe, the works, but Indian Style, you know like the toilets. It was fun and here and there lights exploded over our heads from the heat, then the grip or camera crain or whatever) fell off it's tracks and we almost had some casualties as the 20 foot crane swing irratically before they caught it and saved the camera. And as we neared lunch the professional contracted extras started get attitude and we knew it was time to split and forfiet the 500 Rs. or $1/hr. they had promised to pay us at 9pm. So I got my first job and I quit my first job already. Good on ya mate. Loser. On the bus I had met a nice little slice of swiss cheese living in the big apple, named Yasha. She laughs a lot and is a loner, so so cool. Yasha and I made a break for it and left with the wadrobe on our backs right out the front door and down the dirt track through the refinery to a free ride in a landrover toward town and after a nice meal, we caught a local train back into the center of town. The trains by the way are the hottest way to travel, hot in the Paris Hilton sense.
So I guess to my little mind I again gripped the over ripened fruit of happiness and it squished and squirted in my hand. And as I lick the juices and pulp from my dirt fingers, I drift off into the most intense sexual daydreams of my young stewardess, and our two days of bliss, get a semi, and drug it all over town, til I finally stumble into the hostel.
We boarded a bus and went north east into sprawling mumbai. It felt like a mass abduction, I really did not feel like this was a legitamate venture. And as we entered a petroleum refinery complex in a dodgy part of town, I was sure we were all being gutted for our organs and left for dead. But inside a the large warehouse, there was a little bustling movie studio; Catering, Wadrobe, the works, but Indian Style, you know like the toilets. It was fun and here and there lights exploded over our heads from the heat, then the grip or camera crain or whatever) fell off it's tracks and we almost had some casualties as the 20 foot crane swing irratically before they caught it and saved the camera. And as we neared lunch the professional contracted extras started get attitude and we knew it was time to split and forfiet the 500 Rs. or $1/hr. they had promised to pay us at 9pm. So I got my first job and I quit my first job already. Good on ya mate. Loser. On the bus I had met a nice little slice of swiss cheese living in the big apple, named Yasha. She laughs a lot and is a loner, so so cool. Yasha and I made a break for it and left with the wadrobe on our backs right out the front door and down the dirt track through the refinery to a free ride in a landrover toward town and after a nice meal, we caught a local train back into the center of town. The trains by the way are the hottest way to travel, hot in the Paris Hilton sense.
So I guess to my little mind I again gripped the over ripened fruit of happiness and it squished and squirted in my hand. And as I lick the juices and pulp from my dirt fingers, I drift off into the most intense sexual daydreams of my young stewardess, and our two days of bliss, get a semi, and drug it all over town, til I finally stumble into the hostel.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Standing the Indian Love Queue
So many people, but I am more alone than ever, I could be out back of my house in the dark staring at the waxing moon, and the traffic lights up the hill changing from south lakes drive to soapstone road for no one and I'd feel the same.
I am at that fork in the road again, paused and alone. At the foot of some high cliff or stuck in the middle of a lake. I wait for her and she says she waits for me but impossible thoughts weigh and brood on the roofs of our minds. These black thoughts are overcoming my little air hostess pulling her down. And I still dream of getting into that mile high club, for love, for lust, for fun, for the future, for my memories, for myself. I want her to defect with me. And I love her and the word is so ambiguous and she is confused, perpetually.
I have given her a piece of me that I needed and she has taken it to some domestic airport in some prepaid hotel and she lays on her bed overcome with guilt and cries at the ceiling, her mind reorganizing.
It seems happiness is dissolving in my hands, and hope is now smiling and standing behind me tapping her foot, gripping the whips in her hands. I am unwillingly to move, but nervously looking around, my eyes turn shapes in the darkness into faces and crouching creatures poised to jump out at me. I am trying to hold my mind up from caving in on itself, at least till the next town (light.)
I am at that fork in the road again, paused and alone. At the foot of some high cliff or stuck in the middle of a lake. I wait for her and she says she waits for me but impossible thoughts weigh and brood on the roofs of our minds. These black thoughts are overcoming my little air hostess pulling her down. And I still dream of getting into that mile high club, for love, for lust, for fun, for the future, for my memories, for myself. I want her to defect with me. And I love her and the word is so ambiguous and she is confused, perpetually.
I have given her a piece of me that I needed and she has taken it to some domestic airport in some prepaid hotel and she lays on her bed overcome with guilt and cries at the ceiling, her mind reorganizing.
It seems happiness is dissolving in my hands, and hope is now smiling and standing behind me tapping her foot, gripping the whips in her hands. I am unwillingly to move, but nervously looking around, my eyes turn shapes in the darkness into faces and crouching creatures poised to jump out at me. I am trying to hold my mind up from caving in on itself, at least till the next town (light.)
Call me anytime or sms me, it's my Birthday ---> 011 91 9967284481
Indian Only Lodgings
So the last night in an indian dorm, in the only thing left bed #5 in the deluxe ac room, 185 Rs. Around twelve bunkbeds shoved in a nicely chilled room. Made love to my gear and my cash pretending it was Priyanka. Felt like I was integrating into the city well, with a kinda 'Tenderloin Halfway House' feeling, and I checked in late. Priyanka and I were on the phone for a while trying to ease her wooing mind.
I mostly hangout out an outside juice stand on a corner near the main railway station (C.S.T.) My friends Shafi and Dawood work there, they are 18 year old boys. working this juicebar for 3 years and they sleep on the sidewalk next to the stand every night. with the rats and the cats and the dogs and the fleas. rough life. I give them US dollars, they love it. Best juice in town, grape , watermelon, banana, fig, whatever, all for .20 to .50 cents US.
Dino
Dino
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Mumbai Mind Meld
So here I am ready to leave India and come back to my old life, and I am starting to think about happiness. How far will I go for it. Do I really care about it, do I really care about myself? Will I try anything to get a piece of it? Do I know what it is and will I stop when it comes to me and asks me to stay? Am I truly open to any possible path to happiness? No matter how my mind may judge it? Or will I spend my life comfortable, safe and be happy with that smooth glide to death. Chasing an impossible dream or a photo of a real city scape in Mumbai?
I think I will lead a more creative life at home now that I am no longer working for someone else. But life in DC has never fulfilled me. It has never all come together there for me. Is it a women I love and a Family that I am missing? Is that somekind of cherry on top of all your accomplishments in life that makes them even better? Or not so stressful? Or so important? Is it somekind of anchor or purpose or intention for your life's movements? Is that something that I need to find?
I feel so good eating dinner at my sister's with her new husband Michael. I wish I could get into the weekly routine of eating with them once a week but I can't. I love their lives they made for themselves. I feel so good sitting next to my mother at her house especially last summer before I went for a mountain bike ride on my old training grounds that I had not been on in years. These things I am wanting to do more and more often in my life, as I get older.
It started last March when I started mountain biking again, the first time since 1995. The muscles remembered, and they changed me back to who I was?! I have been looking back lot at the life I had before my career, before the last 12 years of AOL, looking hard at the changes that have happened since I was that person. The changes in my hometown, the changes in the faces of my old friends. Something is going on inside of me, something big, and I have no real clue about what it is or where it is taking me. And this trip comes along and I am taking pictures in faraway cities with one of my best friends. Doing something I used to do when I was that person before my job. Trespassing and Photography, definitely an old hobby of mine that calmed me and made me happy. All the buildings I used to get into in Baltimore are gone, it's all changed since the mid-90's. Now I am sneaking into the back of the Bangkok Mcdonalds to get to the roof to get a nice elevated evening shot of some round about with a statue in the middle. Strange. Full circle. And I am now thinking about happiness again. And how far I will go for it. I want to know how far I will go to be happy. How much zest I have left in the freezer. I really want to know if I truly want to be fulfilled in this lifetime.
The train fills up so tight from Vashi toward Mumbai Central, it is so packed I think I am touching 6 people simulataneously, and I think to myself how can I ever make it here. The crowd drastically subsides a few stops down the line at Govandi or so, and it gets airy and nice again, and people are looking at me and I am smiling at them and they are smiling back. And I am ready for a few more weeks of this place and its warmth and vitality. I always wanted to be an expat, and I thought so much for myself years ago before my career happened to me, and now that I am unravelling the last 12 years I am coming back to these old dreams and the person I always though I was to become, and maybe this ties in with this striving for happiness at any cost. Maybe this is how I find myself? I am no longer starting or end anything, I am in the middle of everything now, and it feels incredible, and I know nothing, and I just smile, because I have nothing to say. It all just rolls around in my head and tickles my tummy as I start to comprehend it and like some dislexia these fragments of the secrets of the universe turn incoherent. And I laugh, and I try not to look so hard at these things in my head. I like that I am becoming the person I was before AOL. I hated that place, I hated the money and how lazy I got and how arrogant I was, and how dead inside I was. I am so glad it is over, I just want to cry. Cry away the shit of it. And I am still in India, crying and all, and it is getting more comfortable everyday and I feel more love here from stranges than I have anywhere else on earth. Especially from Priyanka.
Dino
I think I will lead a more creative life at home now that I am no longer working for someone else. But life in DC has never fulfilled me. It has never all come together there for me. Is it a women I love and a Family that I am missing? Is that somekind of cherry on top of all your accomplishments in life that makes them even better? Or not so stressful? Or so important? Is it somekind of anchor or purpose or intention for your life's movements? Is that something that I need to find?
I feel so good eating dinner at my sister's with her new husband Michael. I wish I could get into the weekly routine of eating with them once a week but I can't. I love their lives they made for themselves. I feel so good sitting next to my mother at her house especially last summer before I went for a mountain bike ride on my old training grounds that I had not been on in years. These things I am wanting to do more and more often in my life, as I get older.
It started last March when I started mountain biking again, the first time since 1995. The muscles remembered, and they changed me back to who I was?! I have been looking back lot at the life I had before my career, before the last 12 years of AOL, looking hard at the changes that have happened since I was that person. The changes in my hometown, the changes in the faces of my old friends. Something is going on inside of me, something big, and I have no real clue about what it is or where it is taking me. And this trip comes along and I am taking pictures in faraway cities with one of my best friends. Doing something I used to do when I was that person before my job. Trespassing and Photography, definitely an old hobby of mine that calmed me and made me happy. All the buildings I used to get into in Baltimore are gone, it's all changed since the mid-90's. Now I am sneaking into the back of the Bangkok Mcdonalds to get to the roof to get a nice elevated evening shot of some round about with a statue in the middle. Strange. Full circle. And I am now thinking about happiness again. And how far I will go for it. I want to know how far I will go to be happy. How much zest I have left in the freezer. I really want to know if I truly want to be fulfilled in this lifetime.
The train fills up so tight from Vashi toward Mumbai Central, it is so packed I think I am touching 6 people simulataneously, and I think to myself how can I ever make it here. The crowd drastically subsides a few stops down the line at Govandi or so, and it gets airy and nice again, and people are looking at me and I am smiling at them and they are smiling back. And I am ready for a few more weeks of this place and its warmth and vitality. I always wanted to be an expat, and I thought so much for myself years ago before my career happened to me, and now that I am unravelling the last 12 years I am coming back to these old dreams and the person I always though I was to become, and maybe this ties in with this striving for happiness at any cost. Maybe this is how I find myself? I am no longer starting or end anything, I am in the middle of everything now, and it feels incredible, and I know nothing, and I just smile, because I have nothing to say. It all just rolls around in my head and tickles my tummy as I start to comprehend it and like some dislexia these fragments of the secrets of the universe turn incoherent. And I laugh, and I try not to look so hard at these things in my head. I like that I am becoming the person I was before AOL. I hated that place, I hated the money and how lazy I got and how arrogant I was, and how dead inside I was. I am so glad it is over, I just want to cry. Cry away the shit of it. And I am still in India, crying and all, and it is getting more comfortable everyday and I feel more love here from stranges than I have anywhere else on earth. Especially from Priyanka.
Dino
Saturday, March 8, 2008
I want to be a Mumbaiker!
Staying in one place has its rewards, I have been in Mumbai since the wee hours of March 5th. Getting more shots for the D.Lloyd book and dating a very young Air Hostess from Inidgo Air, Sweet Baby Jesus. Priyanka is beautiful. And has been miraculously off everyday since we met up. And man I could move here, dirty durty dur teee I am.But yes I am still ready to come home, but somethings now says its not the right thing to do, I don't understand it, is she a sign to keep running being young, travelling? Hitting Thailand in the height of the season? Does that mean live now and don't stop? Could I possibly not get caught up again in some boring routine to kill the years away with? Like before. 5 years gone, money made, youth traded away. I only have so much left. Just got my last lump sum from AOL, $6000. Thanks. Our last dance ends in december with 5000 shares at 22, I have a year to wait to see if they ever go above 22 to give me the profit minus half for taxes? who knows? One thing I know is that I am coming back to India, and Priyanka and I are flying to the Kerala Beaches to see something together we have never seen!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
nice one bernie
I am leaving one town for a neighboring town to catch a flight bacl to Bombay for a day shoot for D.Lloyd try to get more stuff, we overlooked, because of our alledged fugitive guide, Terrence. So I am strolling in the morning hours for a few snaps and a chai or something. My attention is caught by a dog shitting, but real strained and all, spined curled all ready for the snap, ya know. There is something hanging out of his ass, it appears to be snot. So he is strained and curled and gets his head back there and bites at it, you hear the front teeth gnash and he quickly spits it out. Why do I see this, so I go check it out, yes it's a about 2 and a half inches of a tape worm, shit. Can't really get this imagery out of my head, so I thought I'd share.
I am in Bombay again, or Mumbai, think Bombay sounds more romantic. The afternoon shot went well, it was a muslim holiday or hindi holiday yesterday so it was kind dead, I got everywhere in the slums across the street and on the most expensive land in Bombay, damn from slums to high stakes real estate, who'd guessed. So things went well. But a man should not tempt providence to often. Regardless, I went back today, and the water tower I climbed up with a dude that was actually a resident and a chaffuer for the Taj Mahal Hotel, was locked up. The guards were out in force, I was yelled out everywhere, got some great shots nonetheless, but after the last few, the security guards said the police are coming, and that they were yelling from way down the river from the slums. I had to run to catch up with a double decker bus to get out of there and off to the Kurla Station and back to the animity of the indian minions.
Speaking of close calls, the other day I hoped a train from Bandra to my hotel and was unable o get into a car, they seemed all full and I did not feel like pushing my way in, Mistake! I jumped into a Frist Class car with the ticket inspector. He takes my ticket and starts to write up a fine or something, and I find out that the tiket to ride First Class in frickin 340 Rs. compared to the 6 Rs ticket I had purchased. He loks all serious, and he had a buddy or two with him. So I at the next stop I (fairly Obviously) inched my way to the door and as the train started gaining speed hopped off. Fuck the fine. BS. caught another train put a towl on my head and that was that, kharma did kick in and I was unable to find my hotle for an hour.
So overall things are good. Ready to coe hom though, was ready a week ago. Bummed a little by that, but oh well. Music has been keeping my spirits high, and helps at high volumes to drowned out the traffic and yelling and noise of India when you want to be calm in the streets like them, or like a cow. Momma I'm coming home, Wish I had a Bitch to fuck, gonna git me one. See ya.
D.
I am in Bombay again, or Mumbai, think Bombay sounds more romantic. The afternoon shot went well, it was a muslim holiday or hindi holiday yesterday so it was kind dead, I got everywhere in the slums across the street and on the most expensive land in Bombay, damn from slums to high stakes real estate, who'd guessed. So things went well. But a man should not tempt providence to often. Regardless, I went back today, and the water tower I climbed up with a dude that was actually a resident and a chaffuer for the Taj Mahal Hotel, was locked up. The guards were out in force, I was yelled out everywhere, got some great shots nonetheless, but after the last few, the security guards said the police are coming, and that they were yelling from way down the river from the slums. I had to run to catch up with a double decker bus to get out of there and off to the Kurla Station and back to the animity of the indian minions.
Speaking of close calls, the other day I hoped a train from Bandra to my hotel and was unable o get into a car, they seemed all full and I did not feel like pushing my way in, Mistake! I jumped into a Frist Class car with the ticket inspector. He takes my ticket and starts to write up a fine or something, and I find out that the tiket to ride First Class in frickin 340 Rs. compared to the 6 Rs ticket I had purchased. He loks all serious, and he had a buddy or two with him. So I at the next stop I (fairly Obviously) inched my way to the door and as the train started gaining speed hopped off. Fuck the fine. BS. caught another train put a towl on my head and that was that, kharma did kick in and I was unable to find my hotle for an hour.
So overall things are good. Ready to coe hom though, was ready a week ago. Bummed a little by that, but oh well. Music has been keeping my spirits high, and helps at high volumes to drowned out the traffic and yelling and noise of India when you want to be calm in the streets like them, or like a cow. Momma I'm coming home, Wish I had a Bitch to fuck, gonna git me one. See ya.
D.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
fuckin india
India has a homosexual community and two of them found me, yesterday evening. very nice chaps, but a first for me in India. I am losing that loving feeling and already I am excited to return home and get on with my life in progress.
Today there was a big rally CITU in Siliguri so I sort of covered it, did the march and photographed the people went to the stadium and heard the speeches, they mentioned America in the speeches a lot, but the context was unknown to me, Hindu is like Greek to me.
I don't have a card reader or a computer with Adobe Bridge on it so photos can not be posted at this time. I am hanging out with a friend here for now, Depkrah a local kid I meet at a cafe, he is showing me the place to get 3 marsala dosa and 3 chais and a bottle water all for 50 Rs. ($1.25) amazing. If you hang around long enough in any town the prices drop 75% off the beaten pathes.
I am now wearing a Punjabi a Bengali long shirt like thing, its excellent. Two reasons, One is light and airy, and secondly and most importantly, you can wash it everyday and it dry in an hour. It is really hard to stay clean here, and I am learning the ways of the indians, because most of them are pretty clean and that is a tall order in these DIRTY ASS TOWNS.
Still have a cold been a few days, probably from the trains, long 1 ot 2.5 day journeys. The punjabi shirt double well as a hanky! The pollution is the toughest thing here in the cities and I am not really getting used to it, the last four days have been rough, GOA was a breeze compared to anywhere else in India.
Varanassi the spiritual capital of India was my downfall, health was great till that shit hole. It is a very busy large and real dirty tourist trap and the people are the least honest in India in my experiences so far in my few weeks here. People go there to die so take the hint people. The Hotel Elvis has an inn keeper named Haroon and he is really cool so if you go check it out, expensive friends but a great hotel and if you split a room they are $2 per night. The traffic and congestion in Varanassi makes New Dehli and Mumbai look like Ocean City Go-Cart Tracks. Shit was nuts there, by far the most exciting and deadly streets in India for me.
Can't wait to get back and make some art, and finish my house, Since the job ended with Dave Lloyd and the photo shooting through Manila, Bangkok and Mumbai, these have been the longest days of my life. This place makes you feel blessed in so many ways. In Mumbai we visited a mosque out in the water, down a long walkway 1 Km maybe and along the way, there were deformed beggars one after the other, Polio? All kinds of fucked up shit, legless etc. By the time you got to the Mosque you felt the most overwhelming humility, it could not have been more fitting of an entrance to a religious facility. And the beach water the mosque was perched in reaked like a broken unflushed but constantly used stadium toilet from 1963.
Don't get me wrong though I love India. The cities are tough but the system and how it goes on is magic, and all of life here is allowed to grow and form organically. It's the most accepting socitey I have ever witnessed in that sense. Dogs know more about the city than all the tourist. They cross the roads they get their dinners, they siesta in the streets, and people just go around them, they are usually left to live their own lives, so cool. Who does that? Also the cows are another parts of the community, they live in the cities and do as they please as well, crossing 6 lanes roads, nosing their ways into restaurants, sleeping on medians, stoops, and train tracks if a fence goes down. These two groups ( and many others, like the monkeys, etc.) have rights so to speak in India, they get to live their lives among the humans. Who does this? Indians do and that is cool! That is something the rest of the world could learn from, because as a westerner, we have refined and refined and refined our way of life like all the foods we all now deathly avoid for 100% ORGANIC! Life is hard and that is personified here on the outside in India, and for me back home its all inside, my pain is not in the streets or the exterior but in a compartment designed by my refined society and western social values, kept out of the way as not to slow the system down, kept to a minimum just to a POP POP POP here or there, in some shooting spree.
Somehow this paradox of a society works with minimal street violence. Feet get run over everyday and a sorry and or an ambulance is all that is needed. The roads are aggressive at times but without too much anger, I am not sure how this works, but I am slowly learning how to walk in the streets knowing if I am fairly alert and not to avoidant I will not be hurt. Not sure how to explain India, It is fun to photograph and colorful, the people are warm, in the midst of total chaos that they shrug off like the cows roaming free in the streets. I am learning the zen of a cow, and it is a fuckin hard road for me.
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